Sunday, March 12, 2017

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: February 2017

by Soeren Kern

Muslim pupils outnumber
Christian children in more than 30 church schools, including one Church
of England primary school that has a "100% Muslim population." — Sunday Times.

Six Muslim men shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they were sentenced at
Sheffield Crown Court for a total of 81 years for sexually abusing two
girls — including one who became pregnant at age 12 — in Rotherham.

"By 2030, one in three people will be a Muslim in the world —
that is a huge population." — Romanna Bint-Abubaker, founder of modest
fashion website Haute Elan.

A Chatham House survey of more than 10,000 people from ten
European countries found that an average of 55% agreed that all further
migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped.

February 1. Jim Walker, a 71-year-old volunteer at Carnforth Station, was banned
from the premises after someone complained about an alleged racist
comment. Walker, who, for more than a decade, has been winding a famous
clock at the station, was overheard discussing a newspaper article about
young migrants entering Britain from the French port of Calais. Walker
said:

"Carnforth Station Trust received a complaint from a
visitor who was not happy about me speaking to somebody about the
issue.... What they are doing is outrageous. It is absolutely
unbelievable, it is a violation of free speech....
"I must be the only man in Carnforth who has a document saying where
he can and can't walk and all for expressing a point of view and quoting
an editorial from a newspaper. Now [winding the clock] is no longer
possible."

February 1. Prime Minister Theresa May told
the House of Commons that women should feel free to wear the hijab, a
traditional Islamic headscarf. Several European countries have imposed
bans on parts of Muslim religious dress. "What a woman wears is a
woman's choice," May said after she was asked — on world hijab day — if
she supported the right of women to wear the garment.

On
February 1 ("world hijab day"), UK Prime Minister Theresa May said that
women should feel free to wear the hijab, a traditional Islamic
headscarf, stating: "What a woman wears is a woman's choice." Pictured
above: Theresa May (then Home Secretary) wears a headscarf while
attending an interfaith event at Al Madina Mosque in East London, in
February 2015. (Image source: Imams Online video screenshot)

February 2. Six Muslim men shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they were sentenced
at Sheffield Crown Court for a total of 81 years for sexually abusing
two girls — including one who became pregnant at age 12 — in Rotherham.
Three brothers and three other men were convicted of crimes including
rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment after the pre-teen victims
were "systematically groomed."
February 4. Almost half of the new homes built in the next five years will go to migrants, according
to government figures. Soaring immigration means that Britain will need
to accommodate as many as 243,000 new households each year for the next
22 years. It is estimated that an extra 5.3 million new properties
could be needed to meet the growth in population, and an extra 2.4
million of the new homes will be needed for migrants alone. In other
words, one new home must be built every five minutes to house Britain's
burgeoning migrant population.
February 5. Muslim pupils outnumber Christian children in more than
30 church schools, including one Church of England primary school that
has a "100% Muslim population," according to the Sunday Times.
St. Thomas in Werneth, Oldham, is reported by the local diocese to have
no Christian pupils, while at Staincliffe Church of England Junior
School in Batley, West Yorkshire, 98% of pupils "come from a Muslim
background." The Church of England estimated that about 20 of its
schools had more Muslim pupils than Christians and 15 Roman Catholic
schools had majority Muslim pupils, according to the Catholic Education
Service. Some church schools include Islamic prayers in their services.
February 6. The Deputy Mayor of London, Sophie Linden, warned
that people who inflict female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls have
escaped justice "for too long." Linden said that "inconsistencies in the
way these crimes are recorded" had allowed perpetrators to avoid
charges, despite FGM being a "widespread" problem. Although FGM has been
illegal in Britain since 1985, no one has ever been successfully
prosecuted for such offenses.
February 7. Zakaria Bulhan, a 19-year-old Norwegian national of Somali origin, was sentenced
to indefinite confinement at Broadmoor Hospital after he admitted to
killing American tourist Darlene Horton and wounding five others in a
rampage in central London on August 3, 2016. Bulhan, from Tooting, South
London, pled guilty at the Old Bailey to "manslaughter by diminished
responsibility" on the grounds that he was suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia at the time of the attacks. He had been charged with
murder and attempted murder, but the court accepted his plea. During his
arrest, Bulhan repeatedly muttered "Allah, Allah, Allah," and police
found a Muslim prayer book, "Fortress of the Muslim," in his pants
pocket. The court decided that Islam was not a factor in Bulhan's
behavior.
February 7. A Chatham House survey
of more than 10,000 people from ten European countries found that an
average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim
countries should be stopped, 25% neither agreed nor disagreed and 20%
disagreed. Majorities in all but two of the ten states agreed, ranging
from 71% in Poland, 65% in Austria, 53% in Germany and 51% in Italy to
47% in the United Kingdom and 41% in Spain.
February 9. A 44-year-old man from Hertfordshire was arrested
at Gatwick Airport on terrorism charges after he disembarked from a
flight from Iraq. He was charged under Section 5 of the 2006 Terrorism
Act: suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts.
February 12. A National Health Service (NHS) project based on research by Leeds University claimed
that Muslims with mental health issues could be helped by re-embracing
Islam. Traditionally, therapists have shied away from talking about
religion as part of treatment. Lead researcher Dr. Ghazala Mir, of the
university's Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, said:

"We know that in Muslim populations people can get
quicker results from faith-sensitive therapies that have been tested
elsewhere in the world. They tend to use religion as a coping resource
more than people in other religious groups."

Mir has helped to create a new treatment. Patients are asked if faith
was part of their life when they were well. Those who stopped being
religious because of depression are re-introduced slowly using a self-help booklet,
which highlights passages from the Koran that illustrate that "even
people with strong faith" can become depressed and that it does not mean
Allah is displeased.
February 13. Nadeem Muhammed, a 43-year-old Pakistani national, appeared
at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London after security officials at
Manchester Airport discovered a pipe bomb in his hand luggage prior to
boarding a flight to Italy. Muhammed, who lives in Greater Manchester,
was arrested on January 30 but was later released on bail and was
allowed to travel. He was re-arrested when he returned to Britain on
February 11 and charged with possessing an improvised explosive device.
February 14. Clayton McKenna, a 22-year-old Briton who converted to Islam while in prison, appeared
at Newcastle Crown Court after he carried an axe through the streets of
Boldon Colliery, apparently with which to confront his Christian father
over "religious differences." McKenna allegedly told police that he was
on his way to his father's home "to ask him to bow down to me." Judge
Penny Moreland told McKenna:

"It appears you were sober, you had not been drinking or
taking drugs. There has been an examination by the mental health team
and they are satisfied there are no mental health issues I ought to be
taking into account.
"You made a series of statements, both at the scene and in interview
shortly afterwards, as to what you intended to do and what was in your
mind. It is right to say they were confused and contradictory.
"The statements included a suggestion that you were going to use
violence against your father, amongst a number of reasons you said was
because he was a Christian and you were a recent convert to Islam.
"I am concerned that there is no real explanation for your confused
thinking that morning, nor for those threats made, even though they
appear to have been without substance."

February 15. Faisal Bashir, a 43-year-old father of two from Ilford,
was forced to move out of his home after he renounced Islam and stopped
attending mosque. Bashir said he was subject to harassment, but police
dismissed his pleas for help as "just a nuisance." He explained:

"These people knew I had become an atheist and soon
enough my whole family was being harassed. At least once a week they
would hang around near my house, shouting and swearing at me. I was
called an apostate, a non-believer, I was told I had betrayed my God and
my faith. Sometimes they would even say things to my children — they
are far too little to know what was happening, they were very
frightened.
"Police always said they could not really do anything because no
physical altercation ever took place. But I am not the kind of person to
get violent with anybody. Also, it was always different people so they
claimed they could not log it as similar complaint. Eventually a police
officer told me I should just move house to get away from it all.
"We were not left with any other choice.... The new house is over a mile away, but they still managed to find us again."

The Chairman of the Ilford-based British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), Wilson Chowdhry, said:

"Police and councils up and down the country just don't
understand the level of animosity people choosing to leave Islam can
face."

February 16. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain's top police officer, urged
Muslim scholars to step up their efforts to counter the violent
ideology of the Islamic State. He said he believed that IS fighters and
terrorists were "political criminals" who were carrying out "horrific
violence" which had no justification in Islam. In an interview with the Evening Standard, Hogan-Howe repeated the politically correct dogma that the Islamic State is not Islamic:

"The hardest part for the Western world is to interrupt
this philosophy that Daesh [Islamic State] is perpetuating which is that
Islam in any way supports this horrific use of violence.
"There is no interpretation I would argue that could say that, but
some people are getting away with that. Muslim scholars have got to come
up and be really challenging of that and be very clear that this can
never be acceptable. There is no interpretation that can ever conclude
it is okay to kill people. We cannot be at all sensitive to religious
beliefs. We have all got to say that is wrong.
"The Muslim community feel particularly sensitive because Islamism is
about people who profess to be Muslims. I would argue that they are
political criminals — it just happens to be masked in religion. But when
you are dealing with that issue you have to be sensitive to the
majority who are good people trying to do the right thing."

"The fastest growing global consumer is at the moment the
Muslim market. By 2030, one in three people will be a Muslim in the
world — that is a huge population."

February 19. Counter-terrorism police launched
an investigation into claims that Trish O'Donnell, head of Clarksfield
Primary School in Oldham, was being forced to work from home after death
threats from Muslim parents opposed to her Western values. O'Donnell
reportedly has been subject to "harassment and intimidation" in the form
of "aggressive verbal abuse" and "threats to blow up her car" from
parents pushing conservative Muslim ideals. The school is mostly filled
with Pakistani pupils who do not speak English as a first language.
February 20. Members of Parliament debated
U.S. President Donald J. Trump's state visit to Britain. Left-wing MPs
called for the invitation to be withdrawn to protest Trump's travel ban
on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. Conservative Party MPs
accused their opponents of hypocrisy and insulting the American people.
The debate was triggered after an online parliamentary petition seeking
to prevent Trump from making a state visit attracted nearly two million
signatures. A counter-petition received over 300,000 signatures. After
three hours of debate, Sir Alan Duncan, the deputy foreign secretary,
reaffirmed the government's intention to host Trump on a state visit,
tentatively set for October 5-8, 2017.
February 21. Rezzas Abdulla, a 33-year-old man from South Shields, was sentenced
to eight months in prison, a sentence then suspended so that he could
receive treatment for mental health problems, for assaulting a woman and
her nine-month old baby. Rebecca Telford, 25, and her daughter
Layla-Jean, were strolling in South Shields in January 2016 when Abdulla
leaned into the baby carriage and spat into the baby's mouth, and
allegedly said, "white people shouldn't breed," before launching into a
tirade of racial abuse. Telford told police:

"There was no eye contact and no words had been
exchanged. I had never seen him before. I believe he spat on her purely
because we are white, I was a lone female and an easy target."

February 22. Jamal al-Harith, a 50-year-old British convert to Islam,
blew himself up at an Iraqi army base in Mosul on February 20. He had received
£1 million (€1.1 million; $1.2 million) in compensation from the
British government after being freed from Guantánamo Bay in 2004.
Al-Harith, originally named Ronald Fiddler, was born in Manchester to
parents of Jamaican origin and took the name Jamal al-Harith when he
converted to Islam. He was also known more recently as Abu-Zakariya
al-Britani. Captured in Afghanistan in early 2002, and released from
Guantánamo Bay after two years, he later joined IS.
February 23. The BBC paid
"very substantial" libel damages and broadcast a full apology to
Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, founder member of the Muslim Council of Britain,
who was falsely accused of calling for the lynching of author Salman
Rushdie.
February 26. Shahriar Ashrafkhorasani, a 33-year-old Iranian-born
convert from Islam and who is set to be ordained as a Church of England
priest, accused
Oxford University of discrimination and bias after he was told he could
not ask a lecturer critical questions about Islam. During a seminar
about love in religion, Minlib Dallh, a research fellow at Regent's Park
College in Oxford, allegedly pointed at Ashrafkhorasani and said:
"Everybody can ask a question except you." Ashrafkhorasani said that
Dallh had discovered during a coffee break that he was a convert from
Islam. He said that Dallh refused to let him ask questions about the
lecturer's description of Islam as a religion of love and peace. Dallh's
project was partly being sponsored by the King of Jordan. Bishop
Michael Nazir-Ali, who was a senior fellow at Wycliffe Hall until last
year, said that a "politically correct" atmosphere is "very widespread
in the university as a whole." He added: "If people are taking money
from these [Muslim] sources, then that can limit the critical approach
to the study of Islam and Muslim civilization generally."
February 27. A spokesman for the West Midlands Police wrote
on social media that parents caught practicing female genital
mutilation (FMG) on their children should not be prosecuted. He revealed
that the force is opposed to "prosecuting/jailing" parents for FGM
because it would be "unlikely to benefit" children who fall victim to
the crime. He added that the best course of action is to focus on
"education." Tim Loughton, a member of the Home Affairs Committee,
condemned the reluctance to pursue prosecution:

"It is absolutely key to expose perpetrators and to nail
them for it. The police must go after offenders. This is deeply
disturbing because a key part of eradicating the violence of FGM is
exposing, prosecuting, and nailing the perpetrators. Every time a
prosecution fails to materialize, it encourages those that are behind
this that it is not a serious crime, and they can get away it."

February 28. Patrick Kabele, a 32-year-old convert to Islam, was found guilty
of preparing terrorist acts — namely attempting to travel to Syria —
contrary to the 2006 Terrorism Act. During his trial, jurors at Woolwich
Crown Court heard how Kabele, from Willesden in North London, tried to
join the Islamic State in Syria, where he wanted to buy a "nine-year-old
virgin, the younger the better." He added that if he had enough money,
he would buy four wives. Kabele was arrested after he tried to board a
flight from Gatwick to Istanbul, Turkey on August 20, 2016 with £3,000
in cash. Kabele, who was born in Uganda and became a British citizen,
told police after his arrest that he did not "owe an oath of allegiance"
to the United Kingdom. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10042/britain-islam-february